Giant orbiting power plants could harvest the sun's energy to provide world's power needs

Harvesting the sun's abundant energy from space could provide a cost-effective way to meet the world's power needs, a group of international scientists have said.

Orbiting power plants capable of collecting solar energy and beaming it to Earth appear 'technically feasible' within a decade or two based on technologies now in the laboratory, it has been claimed.

Such a project may be able to achieve economic viability in 30 years or less.

Plan for the future: An orbiting power plant similar to this with giant solar panels could be used to harvest the sun's energy and send it back to earth

'It is clear that solar power delivered from space could play a tremendously important role in meeting the global need for energy during the 21st Century,'  a study group of the Paris-headquartered International Academy of Astronautics said.

The study, which was led by John Mankins, a 25-year Nasa veteran and the U.S. space agency's former head of concepts, was billed as the first international assessment of potential ways of collecting solar energy in space and delivering it to Earth via wireless power transmission.

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